What does sound card actually do?

[Monkeee]

i mean am i even gonna notice a difference if i get sound card... for example. Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS. if i get this will even notice a difference? just got a 100$ for best buy and not sure what to spend it on so maybe a sound card.

[Virtualbody1234]

Do you find the quality of the onboard sound to be lacking in any way?

[Monkeee]

nope. the nforce onboard sound quality is excellent

[tesco]

ya the nforce boards have excellent onboard sound.
especially the ones with the soundstorm audio chip.

I wouldn't spend any money on a sound card...maybe more ram or another\bigger hard drive?

[Monkeee]

i alraedy got 200 Gig hard drive and a gig of memory >_<

[tesco]

i alraedy got 200 Gig hard drive and a gig of memory >_<

new case
new mouse\keyboard\both
save it plus christmas money you may get to buy something good.

or spend it on something NOT for your computer.

[Monkeee]

Omg Something Other Than A Computer!! Its Pure Genius!! I Envy U Rosco!!

[3RA1N1AC]

ya the nforce boards have excellent onboard sound.

indeed. before Nvidia released the Nforce series, most people on computer hobby forums would have said that you should at least own a PCI card from a brand like Creative, Philips, Turtle Beach, etc if you wanted good sound quality and acceptable performance from a home/office/gaming PC. onboard sound chips used to be a major drag on the CPU, especially if you cranked up certain sound effects like echo or reverb in some games... because they didn't really do much and they relied on the CPU to do all of the work.

Nvidia changed that by creating integrated sound chips which offer quality and performance on the same level as popular PCI sound cards. so now we can say "oh, you got an Nforce with the MCP-T chip? well if it sounds good to you, then stick with that. a PCI card isn't going to make your computer go any faster." (well, that, and CPUs are now faster than ever, so they have more cycles to spare than ever before)

[Rip The Jacker]

Seriously... what is the point of buying a sound card? I mean, I have onboard sound, and it sounds superb! I don't think it will make a difference if I go out and buy a $100 sound card....

[peat moss]

Mabye a nice speaker setup?